


The Black Rose

by TheNutcase



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dark Hope Mikaelson, Dark Josie Saltzman, F/F, Hosie, Murder, Sexual Tension, tribrid hope
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:14:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26454730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNutcase/pseuds/TheNutcase
Summary: “You should own this world,” Dark Josie murmured with the utmost certainty. “Everyone in it should bow to you. Deep down, you know I’m right.”Hope only hummed lightly in response, Josie’s words beginning to fade in and out of her awareness as the darkness started to overtake her.Josie continued, whispering softly into Hope’s ear like she was telling her a bedtime story. “Sh, it’s okay,” she cooed, her free hand caressing Hope’s cheek. “When you wake up, it'll be much easier to ignore those pesky little morals of yours. I can’t wait to find out who you really are.”Hope would later marvel at the fact that those words made her feel so comfortable and safe right before she died.Or,the Dark Josie/Full Tribrid Hope spinoff we deserved
Relationships: Hope Mikaelson/Josie Saltzman
Comments: 75
Kudos: 566





	1. Chapter 1

Hope reread the same sentence for maybe the fifth time.

She had been perched at Alaric's desk for hours, desperately skimming through a stack of massive books for something that could fix everything.

She had a feeling that she'd still come up empty handed, even if she were able to focus enough to read.

She wanted to cry from the stress of it all. Even though she had a fully formed plan, she still felt like she could be missing something.

In the worst case scenario, Dark Josie would be one step ahead of her.

Her brooding was abruptly interrupted, which was probably for the best.

“Hope,” Landon gasped as he rushed into the room, breathless. 

Hope’s eyes darted up from the book she was reading. They were glassy and bloodshot, like she might’ve been crying not long before.

She almost let herself feel grateful for the interruption, until she saw the look on Landon's face.  “Did you get the flower?” she asked immediately in lieu of a greeting, her voice just as tense as her shoulders.

Landon only averted his gaze, shifting uncomfortably on his feet.

Hope somehow tensed even further, her eyes instantly narrowing into a furious glare. “Landon, I _need_ that flower for the potion,” she hissed dangerously, clearly putting in a lot of effort to keep herself from yelling. 

Landon's only response was a nervous gulp.

Hope's chair scraped harshly across the floor as she rose to her feet. “It’s the most important step for all of this," she spat, her stress propelling her straight into a rant. "Lizzie might die without it—Josie would  _ never _ bounce back from that, they’d both be lost forever. Why didn’t you get it for me, what the hell happened?”

Landon still couldn’t meet her eye. “I got sidetracked with Raf,” he replied quietly, almost as if he were ashamed.

Hope scoffed. “We can’t afford to get sidetracked!” she yelled, the air around her crackling with magic like a live wire.

Landon didn’t dare to say a word.

Hope rubbed at her temple, the stress showing clearly on her face. “This is why I do everything myself,” she growled under her breath, flipping the book she’d been skimming through shut where it laid on the desk. She paused, mentally preparing to go find the flower herself.

“Well, it’s not like you would let me actually help you if I tried,” Landon argued, beginning to sound slightly angry himself. “You only trust me with little errands—it’s like I’m your intern or something.”

The comment seemed to flip a switch in Hope—she no longer had a handle on her rage. The book magically flew across the room and slammed violently into a bookshelf. “Yeah, well, apparently you can’t even  handle a little errand!” she shouted furiously. “We can’t afford to make mistakes right now, Landon!”

Hope closed her eyes and forced herself to suck in a deep, labored breath, apparently trying to get a hold of her anger. When she spoke again it was softer, almost like she was talking to herself. “One misstep, and I…,” she trailed off, swallowing thickly. “We could lose Josie forever.”

Hope didn’t wait for his response, getting a hold of herself and moving across the room to where she’d accidentally just launched the book. 

Landon frowned at the fact that she was barely looking at him, her eyes distant like she was thinking about something else entirely and barely paying attention to their conversation at all. “Don’t act like you’re the only one who cares about this,” he retorted. “I’m willing to die just for this plan.”

“If I could, I’d die permanently to save her,” Hope muttered under her breath with the utmost certainty, grabbing the book from the floor, clearly impatient to be somewhere else. “This plan can’t fail. If it does, I won’t be able to live with myself.”

“Why are you so obsessed with Josie?” Landon asked.

Hope froze in her tracks at the question. It effectively pulled her out of her head, forcing her to hone in on the conversation. “Obsessed?” she repeated slowly, her gaze fixating on Landon with an almost unbearable intensity. 

Landon shrugged and nodded. He looked at her expectantly, his jaw tense, awaiting her answer.

Hope’s expression was cold and unreadable, but very strained, as if she might snap at any moment. “Landon, Josie is a ticking time bomb right now,” she stated carefully. “You don’t know her like I do. Her power… she’s way more dangerous than anything we’ve dealt with.”

Landon sighed deeply, frustrated. “Okay, but I’m not just talking about this week, Hope,” he said impatiently. “You’ve been way more focused on Josie than anything else since we got back together, even before she went dark.”

Hope’s nostrils flared, her jaw ticking dangerously. “Well, maybe you didn’t  _ notice _ ,” she hissed through her teeth. “But Josie was spiraling long before that sandclock broke. Of course I’ve been focused on her, I care about her.”

Landon scowled. “Well, you've been so focused on her, you aren’t even paying attention to  _ our _ relationship at this point,” he accused.

Hope scoffed at that, taken aback. “I don’t have the luxury of paying attention to our relationship,” she snapped, tossing the book back on the desk before she turned back around to face him. "If I don’t save Josie, no one will." 

A flash of hurt rolled through Landon's eyes.

Hope noticed it and it made her pause. “I’m sorry, Landon. But, right now, that’s my priority,” she continued, more matter-of-fact than confrontational. “I don’t have the energy to balance anything else.”

Landon scowled. “Well, I don’t see the point in us even being in a relationship if you aren’t going to pay attention to it!” he snapped.

Hope recoiled slightly, her lips parting in shock. She blinked, her eyes glazing over in thought, the anger slowly from her face as she processed Landon’s words. 

Some sort of realization dawned on her. “You’re right,” she said quietly.

Landon’s brow furrowed with confusion. He took a step closer. “Wait,” he said, calmer now and attempting to backtrack. “I didn’t mean that.”

“No,” Hope replied, her lips drooping into a contemplative frown. “You’re right. This isn’t working out.”

A flash of panic showed in Landon’s eyes. “Hope,” he said, slowly taking another step closer, as though he was trying not to scare her off. “We can work through this. We always do.”

Hope stared at him. “No, Landon,” she muttered. “We don’t always work through it. We always push it under the rug and pretend nothing’s wrong.” 

Landon frowned. “I can fix this,” he said, his voice firm.

Hope shook her head. She looked sad, but resigned to the reality of things. “You can’t fix it,” she answered, her tone gentle. “It’s more my fault than yours. I haven’t been fair to you. You deserve to be with someone who isn’t so preoccupied with saving the world all of the time.”

Landon’s bottom lip trembled, his eyes widening. “I don’t understand,” he muttered. “What are you saying?”

Hope sighed, gulping to prepare herself for what she had to say next. “Landon, I can’t be who you need me to be,” she explained, sounding desperate for him to understand. “I have too much on my plate to focus on fixing us right now. And I can’t just walk away from any of it. I’m sorry, Landon—I didn’t even realize that I wasn’t putting my all into this—”

“Hope, are you breaking up with me right now?” Landon interrupted, his voice slightly cracking.

The question hung heavy in the air.

Hope gulped, averting her gaze. “Yes,” she replied simply.

Landon immediately shook his head. “No,” he blurted out, taking another step closer. “I will fight for this—”

“I’m sorry, Landon,” Hope interrupted. “I just… I can’t put any more energy into this right now, and neither of us can expect you to hold this relationship together on your own.”

“Hope!” Landon called out after her desperately, but she was already rushing out the door.

Hope didn’t turn back. She had a flower to find, after all.

* * *

Hope never expected to find herself in a boxing ring, floating a few inches off of the ground with Josie’s hand wrapped around her neck.

Then again, one of the few powers Hope lacked was the ability to see into the future. This wasn’t the first thing that took her off guard that week.

The room had fallen dead silent, despite the fact that the whole school was packed onto the bleachers. 

Everyone looked horrified. 

The school’s resident savior was in a pretty vulnerable position, after all.

Hope, for her part, looked relatively emotionless. A bit sad, if anything. 

She certainly didn’t look like someone who was about to die. But, she was immortal, after all. Her death seemed insignificant to her.

The same couldn’t be said for the students in the audience. Dark Josie could probably do a lot of damage to them in the time it took for Hope to revive. 

Some of them were already trying to slip out through the doors without drawing attention to themselves.

Hope squirmed slightly to no avail, slumping when she realized that she would not be getting out of this situation unless Josie let her.

Josie made no move to finish her off. She just cocked her head to the side curiously, scanning Hope’s expression, her own cold and calculating. 

“We both know that you might win if you tried,” Josie muttered under her breath, too low to be heard by their audience. 

Hope said nothing. She was resigned to say nothing from here on out, in fact. She would much rather die with dignity than beg for her life. (Especially if she was going to revive, anyway.)

“Why aren’t you trying, Hope?” Josie asked with an exaggerated pout, staged and taunting. “I’m so disappointed.”

Hope licked her lips, staring back at Dark Josie defiantly.

Josie’s eyes flickered with annoyance at Hope’s refusal to speak. The emotion quickly disappeared and was replaced with her usual casual amusement. 

“You’re so quiet, now,” Josie purred. “What’s wrong? You had so much to say just a few minutes ago.”

Hope averted her gaze, her jaw ticking with irritation. Regular Josie knew exactly how to push Hope's buttons—Hope was starting to realize that Dark Josie retained this ability. 

Hope bit her tongue to stop herself from saying something snarky. 

If Josie was going to kill her, Hope honestly wanted her to just get on with it.

Josie had other plans—apparently, she liked to play with her prey. “Awe, are you sad because I said that I don’t think my good side likes you?” she asked with another condescending pout. 

Hope looked back at her with a warning glare. 

Josie smirked under the attention, satisfied that she’d struck a nerve. “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” she murmured, her gaze darkening, drifting down and up again. “I like you enough for the both of us.”

Hope’s brow furrowed at that, her mouth twisting into a confused frown. “You  _ like _ me?” she echoed before she could stop herself.

Dark Josie’s eyes flickered with amusement. She shrugged. “Sure,” she said noncommittally. “You’re definitely more interesting than anyone else around here.”

Hope scowled, her eyes darkening. “Glad to hear I don’t bore you,” she drawled sarcastically.

Josie smirked. She tapped her chin with her free hand, glancing away with a contemplative purse of her lips. “But do you know what would make you more interesting, Hope?” she prompted, something dangerous in her tone.

Hope's eyes narrowed suspiciously. Everything Dark Josie said sounded a lot like a setup. “What?” 

Josie's eyes fixated on Hope's again. “If you were like me,” she practically sang, punctuating the statement with a sadistic chuckle.

Hope stilled for a pregnant pause, staring at Josie warily. “Like you?” she asked, bemused.

Josie smirked. “Let’s say... morally ambiguous,” she suggested with a light shrug, nodding when her own words bounced back to her.

Hope scoffed, in slight disbelief. “Morally ambiguous?” she echoed, her eyes darting down to look at the hand wrapped around her throat. She looked back up again, raising an eyebrow. “Is that what you’d call this?” she asked sarcastically.

Josie scoffed out a laugh. “No,” she drawled, her stare intensifying. “I’d call this foreplay.”

Hope instantly felt her cheeks flood with warmth, the implication making her heart pound rapidly in her chest. Her eyes darted away from Josie's to stare at the crowd on the bleachers again. 

“What the hell are you playing at, Josie?” Hope growled quietly, pinning Josie with a glare. “If you’re going to kill me, just do it already.”

Josie cocked her head to the side, her lips curling up into a playful smile. She appeared to be extremely pleased with the reaction.

Hope felt it when Josie began to siphon from her. 

It wasn’t the siphoning Hope was used to. Usually, when they’d hold hands to perform a spell, Josie would be very careful about the amount of power she took. 

With repetition, Josie had mastered it—she would siphon just beyond the threshold she needed, extremely careful not to take more.

This time, Josie’s siphoning was steady and uninhibited. Dark Josie wasn’t holding back at all. Hope instantly felt dazed and confused, her vision starting to dim.

Josie took a step closer and leaned in, her breath puffing against Hope’s ear. “I  _ am _ going to kill you, since you asked so nicely,” she whispered, her voice soft and teasing. “Then, as soon as you come back, I’ll show you the dark side.”

Hope attempted to scoff, but she found herself already feeling a bit too lightheaded to follow through. “Are you serious?” she muttered weakly instead, the strong pull of Josie’s siphoning relentless.

Josie smiled, her lips brushing over Hope’s temple. “Dead serious,” she murmured, casual like she was commenting on the weather.

Hope blinked a few times in rapid succession, finding herself now contending with a throbbing headache. She glanced over at the bleachers over Josie's shoulder. 

Everyone looked even more horrified than before. Some were pushing through the crowd to flee.

Hope’s field of vision swarmed with black dots all of a sudden. They began to rapidly multiply. 

Hope felt herself begin to panic. She mustered up as much energy as she could just to keep herself awake. 

Josie moved even closer to her, practically hugging her at this point. “You’re Klaus Mikaelson’s daughter, Hope,” she whispered. Something about her voice was insistent and serious this time—it was very unlike the way Dark Josie spoke about anything else. “You aren’t meant to be locked up in a tower drinking rabbit's blood.”

Hope blinked, confused. She gave into her tiredness and allowed her eyes to flutter closed with a quiet whimper. She slumped until her forehead was resting against Josie’s shoulder, her breathing heavy and labored.

“You should own this world,” Dark Josie murmured with the utmost certainty. “Everyone in it should bow to you. Deep down, you know I’m right.”

Hope only hummed lightly in response, Josie’s words beginning to fade in and out of her awareness as the darkness started to overtake her. 

Josie continued, whispering softly into Hope’s ear like she was telling her a bedtime story. “Sh, it’s okay,” she cooed, her free hand caressing Hope’s cheek. “When you wake up, it'll be much easier to ignore those pesky little morals of yours. I can’t wait to find out who you really are.”

Hope would later marvel at the fact that those words made her feel so comfortable and safe right before she died.

* * *

Hope came back to consciousness with a sharp gasp. Her eyes instantly snapped open.

Then, they instantly snapped shut again. She groaned lightly and rubbed at her temple, pulling herself into a seated position and covering her face with her hands.

The light had been blinding. 

She could hear harsh whispers and frantic footsteps, as though they were just on the threshold of her awareness, muffled like noises traveling through water. 

She could  _ feel _ everything. Each of her nerves seemed to be more sensitive than ever before, to the point where it was almost painful where the weight of her body pressed against the ground.

It _was_ painful, she suddenly decided. One moment it was bearable, and the next she felt desperate to address it. She launched to her feet so quickly that she swayed, having disoriented herself. 

Something was off. She’d never moved so quickly before. It had been like a reflex—a compulsion she had no control over.

And there was this insistent pull in her stomach—a hunger unlike any she’d ever felt before. She nearly groaned from the strength of it.

Something was wrong.

Alarmed, Hope’s eyes squinted open despite the harshness of the light.

The gym. The boxing ring. Some of it came back to her in flashes—images of her fight with Dark Josie, and the way she'd lost.

Hope suddenly noticed that Josie was there, still, staring intently at her.  “Welcome back,” she drawled. 

Hope frowned, briefly glancing at the scrawny boy Josie was holding by the shoulders.  She thought that she might’ve recognized him from her History class.

Hope’s eyes darted over to the bleachers, just to find them empty. Only trash was left behind, popcorn strewn about like everyone had left in a hurry.

“They ran,” Josie explained, her voice deceptively casual. Hope turned back to look at her again. Josie just shrugged nonchalantly. “Self-preservation, I guess. I did manage to catch this one for you, though.”

Josie practically tossed the boy on the ground at Hope’s feet.

Hope glanced down at him with a frown. She looked back up to find Josie staring at her with an intensity that sent a shiver down her spine. Josie raised an eyebrow. “Feed,” she commanded simply, daring Hope to defy her.

Hope hesitated, looking down at the boy warily. He stared back up at her, terrified and paralyzed, pleading with her not to kill him.

Hope felt a thrill of excitement and adrenaline course through her body. She nearly shivered from the power of it. It was so strong. Much stronger than the little voice in the back of her head telling her that this was wrong.

She blinked a few times and glanced up at Josie, her mouth twisting into a slightly conflicted frown.

Josie barely contained a glare, releasing an annoyed huff. “You don’t have to lie about who you are anymore,” she snapped impatiently. “You don’t have to be who my father tells you to be. I’m giving you an opportunity. Stop rejecting yourself.”

Much to her own surprise, Hope didn’t need any more encouragement. She only hesitated for a moment longer before she grabbed the boy off of the ground, pulled him closer until his back was against her chest and sank her fangs into his neck. 

Hope’s eyelids fluttered closed from the pleasure of it, even as he released a panicked yelp. He began to beg for his life. It only seemed to amplify Hope’s excitement, even as some small part of her screamed at her to stop.

Hope’s eyes snapped open, glowing a brilliant gold. She continued to drink, but she locked eyes with Josie again, as though she were waiting for instruction. 

It felt like the natural thing to do for some reason—like it was only right. 

Josie tilted her head curiously. She didn’t look particularly pleased or displeased—she only looked fascinated. It was as if she were studying the scene before her; analyzing it. 

“Kill him,” Josie commanded again, with absolutely no inflection in her voice, as though it were that simple.

And it  _ was _ that simple, Hope realized. She pulled back for a moment, her eyes fixating directly on her target. Then, she sank her teeth in once again and drank with renewed vigor.

The boy whimpered and struggled for a moment, but it didn’t take long for him to slump back against her. 

Hope reveled in the feeling of taking his energy for herself. She wondered fleetingly if this was how it felt for Josie to siphon.

The boy’s body eventually fell to the ground. 

Hope’s chest was heaving with heavy breaths. She stared down at him, slightly shocked by what she’d just done. 

When she looked up again, Josie was smirking back at her, apparently very pleased. Strangely, it hinted at something genuine, closer to the real Josie than Hope had seen since Dark Josie took over. 

Josie came forward, carefully stepping around the body. 

Hope turned toward Josie as she approached, her muscles practically vibrating from the adrenaline coursing through her veins. Her ears were ringing not unpleasantly, her eyes on high alert. Every cell in her body was standing at attention.

Josie stepped right into Hope’s personal space. She glanced over Hope for a moment, studying her closely. 

Josie leaned even closer, until Hope felt Josie’s breath trailing down her neck. She gently placed one hand on Hope’s shoulder and the other against her collarbone. “I am so proud of you,” she murmured into Hope’s ear.

Almost as quickly as Josie had approached, she was gone, pulling back and walking around the body, only sparing it a bored glance. 

Hope’s eyes were still trained on her intently, as though she were worried that Josie might disappear over the course of a blink.

“I guess today wasn’t such a waste, after all,” Josie said with a contemplative purse of her lips, turning back around just to give Hope another thorough once-over. “In fact, this might be even better. The Merge can wait till next year.”

Hope felt a sharp twinge of discomfort at the mention of the Merge. 

But, Hope found that discomfort relatively easy to ignore. After all, Dark Josie seemed to be saying that she was planning to put her plans for the Merge on the back-burner for now.

Besides, Hope was suddenly a little bit too distracted to worry. She swallowed thickly. 

She could hear Josie’s heartbeat now, clear as day, since the boy’s had stopped. Hope’s gaze drifted down to Josie’s neck of its own accord, entranced by the dull thump of Josie’s pulse despite the fact that she’d just fed. 

Hope forced herself to look back up, abruptly snapping herself out of it with a few rapid blinks. 

Josie was staring at her with a knowing smirk and a raised eyebrow. She had obviously noticed that Hope was distracted, and she seemed to know exactly why. 

Hope cleared her throat, uncomfortably glancing away. “And what exactly will you do until then?” she asked to deflect, her voice scratchy from disuse. 

Josie let out a dark laugh, apparently amused by the question for some reason. Hope looked over at her once again, confused by the reaction. 

“Oh, I’m sure that  _ we _ ,” Josie started, pausing to shoot Hope a meaningful look. “Can find a way to occupy ourselves in the meantime.”

Hope frowned. Part of her was confused by the suggestion. Another part of her was thrilled. 

Hope was still trying to adjust to the fact that she was juggling three entities inside of herself now. Apparently, they weren’t all on the same page. 

“We?” she echoed, keeping her face intentionally blank as she tried to decide how she felt.

  
Josie mounted a pout, but the amusement still swimming in her eyes made it obvious that it was just an act. “Awe, sweetie,” she purred slowly, her pout becoming even more exaggerated. “You weren’t thinking that I’d leave you behind, were you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 🙃 umm idk
> 
> This will be a multichap fic.
> 
> Follow me on Twitter @Th3Nutcase
> 
> & let me know what you think!


	2. Chapter 2

“Pull over,” Dark Josie directed, gesturing vaguely out the window.

There was only a moment of hesitation before Hope complied, tapping the brakes and veering toward the curb. “Here?” she asked, rolling to a halt.

“Mhm,” Josie hummed absentmindedly. She was busy scanning the street, her eyes focused and alert like she was looking for something.

Hope stared at Josie blatantly. She somehow looked as graceful as ever, carrying herself like a Queen even in the passenger’s seat of a Jeep.

A Jeep that Hope may or may not have compelled a man to give to them.

Josie noticed Hope’s staring after a moment—or perhaps she had been aware of it all along, because she looked entirely unsurprised. The corner of her lip quirked up into a half-smirk, and she winked.

Then she was gone, opening the door and getting out of the car in one smooth motion. Hope blinked and the car door was already swinging shut in her face.

Hope frowned. She almost moved to get out of the car herself, but she hesitated, taking note of where they were for the first time.

It looked like a normal residential neighborhood, except for the fact that there were so many cars parked along the side of the road.

It was getting dark—the sun was setting, but Hope could still see a group of teenagers walking down the sidewalk toward them.

Josie rapped twice on the driver’s side window.  Hope snapped out of her reverie and rolled it down. 

Josie leaned closer, resting her elbows on the window frame. She crossed her hands in front of her, feigning patience. “Are you coming?” she asked. “Or are you about to drive away?”

Hope pursed her lips and shrugged. “That depends,” she said noncommittally. She gave Josie a pointed look. “Why are we here?”

Josie rolled her eyes, impatient. She reached for the door’s handle and pulled it open. “Get out,” she ordered, deadpan.

Hope huffed out a sigh, but she slid out of the car all the same. 

Hope reached in to roll the window back up and turn off the car, while Josie navigated her way around the front of the car to the sidewalk.

Josie casually grabbed a flyer right out of some guy’s hand as he was passing by. He stopped in his tracks to stare at her, shocked. 

He didn’t look like he was used to being pushed around. He was muscular, wearing ripped jeans and a leather vest with decorative spikes.

He looked like he was about to protest for a moment, but Josie gave him a seething glare and he seemed to think better of it. He scuttled away down the sidewalk with his tail between his legs.

Josie turned around and walked back around the car while Hope slammed the driver’s side door closed. She shoved the flyer into Hope’s hands.

Hope stared down at it. It was an advertisement for some kind of concert. Its title was something vague about an underground punk collective, and the rest of the page was filled with badly photoshopped instruments and a list of band names.

Hope’s brow furrowed with confusion. “A concert?” she mumbled, almost as if she were talking to herself. 

She scanned the page for an address, but the closest thing she could find was an email scrawled below the direction ‘ _ contact for details _ ’. 

Hope glanced back up at Josie. “Where?” she asked.

“The basement of that house,” Josie said simply, pointing across the street.

Hope spun around to try to identify which house Josie was pointing at. It wasn’t difficult—there were some people standing around on the front lawn, and some walking down the street toward it. 

Still, there was no indication that there would be a concert going on inside. It looked just like the other residential houses on either side of it, packed close together and framed by fences.

Hope turned back around again, squinting at Josie suspiciously and scanning her up and down. 

Josie just raised a challenging eyebrow, leaning back against the car, looking bored.

Hope frowned, confused. “Okay, but why?” she asked. She glanced over her shoulder again at the house. “This isn’t exactly the type of place I’d expect you to frequent.”

Josie scoffed out a laugh. “And what type of place would you expect me to frequent, exactly?” she challenged.

Hope pursed her lips, pretending to think. “I don’t know,” she started. “The cemetery? Or maybe the morgue?”

Josie seemed to find that very amusing. She fought back a smile, licking her lips. Her eyes darkened almost imperceptibly, but Hope caught it. “Hope, I might be a sociopath, but I still like music,” she drawled with a teasing smirk and a wink.

Hope ignored the shiver rolling down her spine and rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah?” she snarked, bemused. “And what exactly do you listen to? Marilyn Manson?”

Josie pouted, but her eyes gave her away—she was clearly finding their banter very entertaining. “What’s wrong with that?” she asked, pretending to be offended.

Hope sighed, suddenly feeling very impatient. “Josie,” she began, giving the siphoner a stern look. “Why are we here?”

Josie frowned, like she was genuinely disappointed that their banter was over. She pushed off of the car. “We’re here for you,” she explained simply, her tone now clinical and serious. “I need you well-fed for where we’re going.”

Hope blinked. “Is that so?” she drawled, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.

Josie deflected like a pro. “Aren’t you hungry?” she asked. “You haven’t fed for hours.”

Suddenly, Hope realized that she was, in fact, very hungry. Her fangs extended just at the thought of feeding. 

Hope swallowed thickly and felt the sting of venom at the back of her throat. Her eyes shimmered gold. 

Josie didn’t miss it. She stepped closer, invading Hope’s space much in the same way she had after Hope’s first kill as a vampire. “Come on,” she whispered into Hope’s ear, her voice low and borderline seductive. “Let’s hunt.”

Josie grabbed Hope’s wrist and dragged her across the street before she could recover.

* * *

The basement was even stranger than Hope expected it to be.

They had to descend a stone staircase into the backyard to even get to it. 

The room was small and cramped; the walls were covered in spray paint, from what Hope could see with the dim lighting. The only thing indicating that it was about to be home to a concert was a small stage in the corner of the room.

Otherwise, there was nothing in the room besides a few tables tucked away in the corner and a refrigerator laying on its side against the wall.

Hope instinctively made a beeline for a dark corner and Josie followed her without argument. 

There was a fair number of people scattered across the room, but it wasn’t packed yet. Hope figured that more people would arrive when the band started playing—whenever that would be. 

The band was nowhere to be seen, as far as Hope could tell. In the meantime, someone had hijacked the speakers to play loud, heavy music.

Josie leaned closer to Hope. “See? This place is like an all-you-can-eat buffet,” she murmured, their proximity allowing Hope to hear her over the music. “Some of these people might even pay you to kill them.”

Hope allowed her eyes to wander around the room. Paired with the bass pounding out of the speakers, the energy in the room seemed to be intensifying her hunger to the point where it was almost unbearable.

People were excited, their hearts pounding; they were intoxicated and therefore vulnerable. It was an ideal hunting ground.

“See anyone you like?” Josie asked.

Hope’s nostrils flared. She fought to hold onto her self-control, finding the task extremely difficult. “I want to kill them all,” she admitted in a low growl.

Josie let out a genuine laugh, scanning Hope up and down as if to assess her. “I’d let you, babe,” she started, already sounding apologetic. “But I have some plans that’ll require us to keep a low profile for a while.”

Hope blinked, the statement briefly shocking her out of her trance. She snapped her gaze away from where it had been fixated intensely on some guy’s neck and studied Josie’s expression. “And what might those plans be?” she asked, curious.

Josie raised an eyebrow. “Certainly not the kind of plans we should discuss here,” she replied, her eyes darting meaningfully toward the crowd beside them.

Hope found herself unable to dispute that. She decided to just drop the subject. “Well, how do you propose we keep a low profile, then?” she asked instead.

Josie frowned. “I expected your instincts to kick in for that,” she suggested, cocking her head to the side curiously.

Hope swallowed thickly, scanning the room once again. Her eyes locked onto a girl’s neck this time, her breathing instantly becoming more labored. Her senses seemed to narrow, the music muting and her vision darkening around the edges until all she could seem to see or hear was the dull thud of the girl’s pulse.

Hope remembered absentmindedly that Josie was waiting on her to say something. “My instincts don’t exactly scream _low_ _profile_ ,” she growled through her teeth, almost shaking from the effort of her restraint. “Not in a place like this.”

Josie looked fascinated, staring at Hope intensely—not that Hope noticed, as distracted as she was.

“Hope, look at me,” Josie ordered. Hope obeyed, her eyes locking onto Josie’s as soon as she managed to tear them away from the girl’s neck. 

Their eye contact allowed Josie to see the way Hope’s pupils were dilated, struggling to push back against her golden irises like the fronts of a war.

“God,” Josie said on the tail end of an exhale, staring into Hope’s eyes almost reverently. “You’re so beautiful. ”

Hope blinked rapidly. She felt her heart skip a beat in her chest. Her brow furrowed with confusion in response to the way Josie was looking at her. It wasn't a look she'd expect to be on the receive from Josie's dark counterpart.

Hope opened her mouth to say something, but she was derailed when a group over Josie’s shoulder suddenly cheered.

A man was waddling through the crowd, carrying both a guitar case and a massive amp. The crowd was parting for him and hollering excitedly. He was closely followed by a few more men, all carrying their own instruments.

Josie noticed, too, turning to observe them as they began to set up their equipment. Someone shut off the music, the room falling silent aside from the crowd’s chatter. 

After a pause, the silence was broken by a few solitary notes when the guitarist began to tune.  More people began to flood in through the door, the crowd steadily increasing. 

Josie turned back to look at Hope, her eyes cold and calculating. “Here’s what we’ll do,” she started. “Go outside. Go around the back of the house, to the side opposite the entrance. Hide there and wait for me.”

Hope frowned, not sure of where Josie was going with this. 

Josie stared at Hope expectantly. After a pause, when the guitarist strummed a chord, Hope nodded and brushed past Josie. She weaved through the crowd and slipped out the entrance.

* * *

Hope lurked in the alley for nearly ten minutes, hidden behind a weirdly placed stack of boxes. Her sensitive hearing picked it up when the band began to play.

Not that Hope would’ve needed sensitive hearing to detect that. The music must’ve been deafeningly loud inside, because even a human would’ve heard it clear as day from where Hope was standing. 

Hope absentmindedly wondered whether or not the surrounding houses ever made noise complaints. 

Then, Hope wondered what the hell Josie was up to.

She didn’t have to wonder for long. Soon, she heard approaching footsteps and giggling. A gust of wind brought Josie’s scent to Hope, and she breathed in deeply. 

It was mixed with something muskier; more masculine. 

Hope tucked herself closer to the wall, realizing that Josie was not alone.

It was as if Josie had some kind of sixth sense to detect where Hope was, because Josie halted in her tracks before she got there.

A voice chimed out, much lower than Josie’s. Hope figured from the tone that it must be a young man, or maybe a boy in his late teens. 

“We had to come all the way back here?” he asked, sounding a little bit annoyed for some reason.

Josie giggled, the sound soft and girly in a way that disoriented Hope. It sounded very unlike Dark Josie. “I just want to make sure we won’t be interrupted,” she answered. 

Hope blinked. Her voice reminded Hope a lot of the old Josie—softer, much less direct and demanding.

There was silence for a pause. Hope strained her ears, expecting to hear the boy reply.

He didn’t. Instead, Hope only heard a thump—and then, the distinct sound of kissing.

Hope’s eyes flashed, her chest tightening sharply as her upper lip curled into a snarl. She listened for a moment longer, hearing only the smacking of lips on lips and a soft sigh, before she decided to step out of her hiding spot.

It wasn’t exactly a surprise for Hope to see Josie pressed up against the wall making out with a guy, but it made Hope's blood boil all the same. 

After stilling for a moment, Hope approached silently, stepping toward the fence until she was parallel to them.

Her eyes narrowed. She considered ripping him off of Josie and pulling his heart out of his chest.

Before she could, though, Josie pulled back from the kiss.

The boy followed her, but she dodged his lips. He folded into her, automatically beginning to kiss her neck. She let out an encouraging sigh. 

Hope felt herself beginning to seethe, her muscles vibrating with barely restrained rage.

Josie snapped open her eyes, then, her pupils blown. 

She seemed entirely unsurprised to find Hope staring back at her. She seemed pleased about it, in fact, her eyes sparkling with mischief and her lips curling up into a teasing smirk.

Hope swallowed thickly, venom once again burning at the back of her throat. 

Hope's fury was somewhat eased now that she had Josie's undivided attention, even though the boy was still mouthing at Josie's neck.

“Take off your jacket,” Josie whispered breathlessly into his ear, not breaking eye contact with Hope. 

He moved quickly, taking a step back to frantically pull off his jacket.

He moved to drop the jacket on the ground, apparently ready to get right back to what they’d been doing, but Josie pulled it from his hands.

She looked down, inspecting it curiously. “This is nice,” she noted, her voice no longer breathless. She sounded completely unaffected now, in fact. "Where did you get it?"

The boy’s brow furrowed with confusion at the question, like he didn’t understand why she was asking. “Uh… I don’t remember, maybe a flea market or something?” he replied, his chest still heaving.

He attempted to lean in to kiss her again, but Josie put a hand on his chest to hold him back. “Hm,” she hummed, still staring at the jacket. “Interesting.”

The boy scowled. “Are we doing this or not?” he snapped impatiently.

Josie’s gaze darted up to his, cold and hateful. The boy flinched at her sudden change in mood, taking a sharp step back like it had burned him.

Josie smirked dangerously and cocked her head to the side. “Not,” she replied slowly, like she was amused that he would even think otherwise. She looked over his shoulder again, making eye contact with Hope, whose eyes were now a solid, unyielding gold. “Go ahead, I’m done with him.”

The boy sputtered, his eyes widening. He spun around to see what Josie was looking at, flinching and tripping over his feet when he caught sight of Hope. “What the—”

He wasn’t able to finish the sentence before Hope threw him violently into the wall. He yelped, but Hope wasn’t far behind, roughly pinning him down and sinking her fangs into his neck without mercy.

The boy screamed, but there was no chance anyone would hear him—not with the volume of the music, which was so loud that the wall was shaking against his back.

Josie stepped over to the fence and casually leaned back against it, still inspecting the jacket. 

The boy was begging and crying now. Hope released him. For a moment he seemed to think that she might let him go. 

She crushed his optimism, grabbing him by the neck and pulling him away off the wall, forcing his knees to buckle and pinning him to the ground.

The movement caught Josie’s attention. She looked up from the jacket, smirking as she realized that Alaric had probably taught Hope that takedown. 

Hope crouched over the boy on the ground, sinking her fangs into his neck even more violently this time.

Josie let out a low whistle. “Someone’s enjoying herself,” she sang playfully.

Hope ignored her, way too preoccupied as she became absorbed in the kill.

Josie only watched Hope work with rapt interest.

When Hope finally decided that she was finished, she rose to her feet. She stumbled a little, dazed like she was a little drunk on bloodlust.

Josie pushed herself off of the fence and took a step closer.

“That was way more violent than last time,” Josie observed, spinning Hope by the shoulders to face her.

Josie reached out, gently brushing away a line of blood at the corner of Hope's mouth with her thumb.

Hope scowled. "He deserved it," she muttered resentfully, her eyes still a little distant and glazed over.

Josie smirked, her eyes sparkling with amusement. “Oh, is someone a little bit  _ jealous?” _ she gasped dramatically, pretending to be shocked.

Hope frowned. “I didn’t like the way he was speaking to you,” she spat, her eyes flashing gold once again at just the memory.

Josie's smirk turned into a smile. “So you made him suffer,” she murmured, like she was genuinely touched. “That’s so sweet.” 

Hope gave no response, except for a raised eyebrow.

Josie chuckled. She raised up the leather jacket to display it. “I took this off of him,” she said. “Because I thought it would look sexy on you. Try it on.”

Hope grabbed the jacket and took a step back to put it on, pulling her hair out from under the collar and adjusting the sleeves.

Josie grinned triumphantly, checking Hope out without shame. “I was right,” she stated matter-of-factly. “It looks way better on you than it looked on him.”

Hope smiled.

“Let’s go,” Josie suggested after a brief silence. "We don't want to be here when someone finds him."

Josie grabbed Hope's wrist once again and led her back toward the car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 👀 
> 
> follow me on twitter @Th3Nutcase for updates & other things if you want


	3. Chapter 3

The house was practically a mansion.

It had three floors and ten bedrooms, but only two of them were ever occupied. As rich as the owners were, they didn’t have many friends. They were a bit antisocial—not just in the reclusive way, but in the cruel way. 

They made their money by conning people.

They were paranoid, too. Beyond the giant garden in the front yard, a massive fence with a heavy-duty iron gate surrounded the property.

If that weren’t enough, they hired security guards.

There were three full-time security guards, in fact. They rotated posts—one on the back porch, one on the front porch and one on the first floor.

The night started like any other. The guard on the front porch stood leaning up against one of the house’s massive pillars, taking a swig from his water bottle which was secretly full of whiskey.

He absolutely was not supposed to be drinking, but it’s not like anyone was there to hold him accountable. The owners never checked up on him at this time of night—they were always inside watching shows or sleeping. 

He thought the whole security detail was kind of bullshit, honestly. No one ever trespassed and nothing ever happened.

The owners were just paranoid for no good reason, in his opinion. Sure, they had a lot of valuable things in the house, but no one ever had the nerve to try to break in.

The guard was musing over these thoughts, semi-drunk and staring blankly at the hedges in the garden, when his line of sight was interrupted. A shadow flew from left to right, fast enough to be a blur in the dark.

The guard’s eyes widened, his heart jumping into his throat. He straightened up from where he was leaning against the pillar, his eyes darting around the garden.

For a moment he saw nothing, and he almost convinced itself that it was only a trick of the light. But then the same shadow seemed to run past again in the opposite direction, disappearing behind a tree.

The guard gulped, quickly descending the staircase as squinted to try to see in the dark. “Is someone there?” he called out, taking a few tentative steps further away from the porch.

“Hello,” a sultry voice sounded behind him.

The guard whipped around, his hand hovering over the gun on his hip, ready to pull it. He let out a breath and relaxed when he took in the sight before him—just a teenage girl. 

He frowned, then, glancing over his shoulder at the gate and wondering how the brunette had gotten past it without him noticing. “Who are you?” he demanded.

The brunette smiled, something dark glinting in her eye. “My name’s Josie,” she replied innocently. She cocked her head to the side curiously. “Who are  _ you?” _

The guard blinked, confused by Josie’s casual question. “I…,” he started, trailing off. He cleared his throat and stood up taller, trying to appear more confident. “Mark Swanson. I’m a security guard.”

Josie raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. “A security guard, huh?” she drawled.

The guard took his hand off of his gun, figuring that he didn’t need it. He crossed his arms over his chest and tried to look stern. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

Josie pursed her lips and shrugged casually. “You have a fancy gate,” she observed, pointing over the guard’s shoulder at the property’s entrance. “I wanted to know what was behind it.”

The guard’s brow furrowed with confusion. He reflexively turned his head to glance at the gate she was pointing at. It was, in fact, fancy—but it was also closed, and there for a reason. He turned back to look at Josie again. “You can’t be here,” he said pointedly. “You’re trespassing.” 

Josie pouted in response, cocking her head to the side. “Trespassing,” she echoed slowly, the syllables contemplative and exaggerated, as if she were learning the word for the first time.

The guard sighed, taking a step closer. “Listen, sweetheart,” he began, his tone patronizing and dismissive. “If you don’t leave, I’m going to have to escort you off the premises.”

Josie’s eyes darkened at the threat. She somehow seemed to be simultaneously offended and amused by it. “That’s a cute ultimatum,” she mocked, taking a few paces closer to him herself. “But I have a better one. You can either take your break early and forget you saw me here, or you can die.”

The guard scoffed out a surprised laugh. He stared at her for a long moment, in disbelief. “You’re kidding, right?” 

“I’m serious,” Josie responded simply, bored. She barely spared the guard a glance, now busy studying the hedges. “How much do they pay you, is it worth dying?”

The guard paused for a moment, staring blankly at the teenage girl who was apparently dropping a death threat on him like it was nothing. “Look, I don’t know if this is supposed to be a joke or something,” he started, uncertain. “But you really need to leave.”

Josie’s intense gaze snapped back over to the guard. “I don’t joke,” she stated. “Nice meeting you, Mark.”

Josie turned around and waltzed toward the porch without another word.

The guard frowned, beginning to follow Josie and reaching out as if he intended to grab her wrist. 

He opened his mouth to say something but it never saw the light of day. Suddenly, he was grabbed from behind and jerked backward. Hope covered his mouth with a hand and buried her fangs in his neck in one smooth motion.

Josie turned back around, a smirk growing across her face in response to the guard’s muffled screams. She leaned back against the railing of the staircase that led up to the porch, darkness swirling in her eyes while she watched Hope feed.

Hope was a messy eater, Josie was beginning to realize. She seemed to like pulling back and biting down again. Josie figured that Hope either wanted to relive the violence of the first contact or that she just wanted to make things as painful as possible—maybe both.

Josie found it fascinating to watch. “God,” she breathed. “You’re so hot when you take what you want.”

Hope seemed to register the words, shuddering violently and taking one last pull of his blood before she jerked away. The guard’s lifeless body collapsed on the ground the moment she let go of it. She looked up at Josie, her eyes gold and slightly glazed over for a moment before she blinked it away.

Hope wiped some blood away from the corner of her mouth without breaking eye contact. She raised an eyebrow, bemused. “Are you going to tell me what we’re doing here now?” she prompted.

Josie pursed her lips, running her hand over a finely-trimmed rose bush right beside the railing. “I like it here,” she mused, plucking a flower and twirling it in her fingers. She stared down at it. “It’s pretty. I thought we could settle down.”

Hope frowned, dissatisfied. “Jo,” she began, her tone warning. “I’m serious.”

Josie looked up from the flower and raised an eyebrow, the corner of her lip twitching like she was trying to contain her amusement. 

Josie turned and walked up the stairs to the porch. Hope watched her intently the whole way, taking a few steps closer until she stood at the bottom of the staircase—almost as though she were drawn to Josie like a magnet.

Josie turned again, leaning over the porch railing to stare down at Hope with a contemplative purse of her lips. “Maybe I’ll tell you later,” she said noncommittally, shrugging like she had no intent to do any such thing.

Before Josie knew it, Hope flew up the stairs in a blur and had her pinned to the wall. 

Josie exhaled, the wind knocked out of her. Hope let out a low growl, her upper lip curling back into a snarl and her eyes flashing gold as a warning while she leaned into Josie’s personal space.

Josie recovered quickly and grinned at the show of aggression. “Easy, killer,” she murmured, fondly reaching out to straighten the collar of Hope’s (recently stolen) leather jacket. 

Hope huffed, grabbing Josie’s hands in her own and pinning them on either side of Josie’s head. “Tell me your plan, Josette,” she commanded, her voice low and threatening. “You can’t expect me to just follow you around like a lost puppy.” 

Josie cocked her head to the side. She leaned in closer. Hope almost flinched but held her ground. 

“Oh, but you  _ would _ ,” Josie gasped, pretending to be scandalized. “Wouldn’t you?”

Hope felt the air behind Josie’s words brush over her lips. She sucked in a sharp breath, her eyes drooping closed instinctually.

She became aware, suddenly, of a variety of things—of Josie’s scent, thick and almost palpable with their proximity. Josie’s scent was familiar, the same as it had always been, but Hope realized that her newly triggered vampire senses made it even stronger—and  _ tempting _ .

Everything about Josie was tempting now, actually. Her steady heartbeat; the pulse Hope could feel when she reached out and absentmindedly brushed her fingertips over Josie’s neck.

Hope’s breathing became labored. She swallowed thickly, feeling venom burn at the back of her throat.

Slowly, Josie leaned closer. Hope flinched without opening her eyes. Her face twitched like she was in the middle of a bad dream as she tried very hard to restrain herself. 

Josie’s neck was  _ right there. _

Josie slowly trailed her lips across Hope’s cheekbone. She planted a gentle, lingering kiss on Hope’s temple. “Let go of me,” she whispered directly into Hope’s ear.

Instantly, Hope jerked back like she'd been shocked. Her eyes fluttered open, flashing an unstable gold. She hesitated for a moment, staring into Josie’s eyes—they were amused; mischievous, even.

Then, Hope released Josie’s hands and took a step back. 

Hope looked away, almost as if she were embarrassed. Josie cocked her head to the side curiously, studying her.

After a moment, Josie stepped forward. Hope looked up at her again and took a step back, wary and uncertain of herself.

Josie led Hope back a few more steps, pinning her against a pillar. The roles were effectively reversed.

Josie stared at Hope for a moment, like she was trying to read her. “Death has made you impulsive,” she murmured. “I can’t say that I don’t like it, but if this is going to work between us, you need to understand that I’m in charge.”

Hope scowled reflexively, her eyes narrowing into a glare. “I’m not your pet,” she snapped.

Josie frowned. “I never said you were,” she replied seriously. 

Hope blinked at Josie’s change of attitude—her seriousness was almost disorienting, considering her usual teasing.

“I know you’re as strong as I am, Hope—stronger, even—I’m not an idiot,” Josie insisted quietly, giving Hope a pointed look to try to emphasize her sincerity. “I’m not trying to patronize you.” 

Hope frowned, severely confused. The last thing she’d expected was for Dark Josie to be sincere about anything.

Josie seemed not to notice Hope’s confusion, or at least she didn’t care. She reached out, gently caressing Hope’s jaw. “Our strengths are different,” she murmured absentmindedly, staring down at Hope’s lips and looking slightly distracted. “I want to honor yours. Give you room to grow. Trust me.”

“I have no reason to trust you,” Hope replied instantly, less accusatory and more matter-of-fact.

The corner of Josie’s lip twitched upward into a little smirk. “And yet,” she whispered, running a thumb across Hope’s bottom lip. “You let me wrap my hand around your neck,” she continued, her fingertips drifting down to trace over Hope’s pulse point. Hope swallowed thickly in response. “And take your life.”

Hope scoffed out a little disbelieving laugh. “ _ Let _ you,” she whispered, as if that phrasing were ridiculous.

Josie raised an eyebrow. “You had the strength to stop me,” she stated, her voice more assertive and grounded than before. Pointedly, she pressed her fingertips down a little harder against Hope’s neck. “You could stop me now.”

Hope stared back at Josie for a long, tense moment. Then, she raised her own eyebrow. “I’d let you do anything to me,” she admitted, matter-of-fact.

Josie froze, her eyes widening almost imperceptibly at the claim. Hope caught it, a strange thrill coursing through her in response to the fact that she was able to take Dark Josie, of all people, off guard. 

Suddenly, Josie let go of Hope and spun around, approaching the door.

Hope pouted, unable to guise her disappointment. She pushed off of the pillar. “What are you doing?” she asked, rubbing at her neck.

Josie didn’t answer at first. She just held a hand over the door handle and chanted some indecipherable spell under her breath.

The door clicked and swung open. “I’ll be right back,” Josie called over her shoulder, disappearing inside the house.

Hope frowned and went to follow, but she found out that she couldn't. She stood right outside the doorway and willed her body to go through it, but it simply wasn't happening.

Hope realized that she needed to be invited in. She frowned, briefly wondering how she could address that problem before she was interrupted.

Josie came back to the door, practically dragging a woman by the back of her neck.

The woman looked terrified. “W-who is—”

Suddenly, the woman collapsed with a shout, Josie staring intensely at the back of her head.

The torture ended relatively quickly, and the woman was left slumped on the floor and breathing erratically.

“Invite her in,” Josie ordered, sounding bored. “Or I’ll do that again.”

"W-what?" the woman gasped.

Josie sighed. She stepped around the woman, nodding her head in Hope's direction. "Look at her," she commanded impatiently. "And say _come in_."

The woman gasped for air, looking back and forth between Hope and Josie. 

Josie raised an expectant eyebrow. The woman gulped and looked at Hope. “C-come in,” she said, confused.

Josie smiled. “Well done," she drawled, her tone a bit mocking.

Josie waved her hand, snapping the woman's neck in an instant. The woman's body slumped on the floor.

Josie glanced over at Hope. "There’s a butler around the corner in the kitchen," she said, no inflection in her voice. "Kill him before he gets to the phone."

Hope blinked, but then she flew past Josie in a blur.

Josie casually strolled into the kitchen to find Hope already towering over the butler. He was thrashing about on the floor, trying and failing to escape her.

Josie leaned against the counter, watching Hope feed. The butler's sounds of frantic protest grew quieter in moments, until they completely ceased. 

“As I was saying,” Josie said, glancing at the scene with no emotion besides mild interest. “You and I are different. I think it’s best if we embrace that.” 

Hope pulled back, the butler's torso falling back to the floor with a _thump_. She stood and turned to look at Josie again, wiping her mouth carelessly. “Different how?” she asked, slightly dazed.

Josie smirked, pushing off the counter and walking closer. “Play along,” she ordered.

Josie wrapped Hope’s hand around her neck and turned, pressed her back flush against Hope's chest. Not a moment later, a security guard burst into the room with a gun trained on them, his hands trembling.

Josie slumped back against Hope, her expression flipping into one of pure panic in an instant. “H-help, sir, I think she’s going to k-kill me,” she whimpered, her eyes shining with frantic tears.

Hope didn’t have to do much in the way of acting. Her eyes flashed gold, rimmed with black veins in response to the feeling of Josie’s pulse pounding beneath her palm. Her fangs extended as she stared intently at Josie's neck, her lips parting to accommodate them.

Suddenly, Josie elbowed Hope roughly in the stomach. Hope flinched. She didn't put up much of a fight when Josie pulled away from her and practically ran behind the guard, still looking thoroughly terrified.

The guard kept his gun trained on Hope, his hands still trembling. "W-what are you?" he gasped out, apparently terrified himself.

Josie dropped the act now that the guard wasn't paying attention to her. Her teary-eyed, panicked expression collapsed back into a slightly amused one. "She's pretty sexy, isn't she?" she purred, sending Hope a wink and a smirk over the guard's shoulder.

The guard only had the time to blink, his eyes filling with confusion an instant before Josie snapped his neck.

Josie brushed off her hands. “That’s how,” she said with a shrug, her tone neutral once again. 

Josie approached Hope, stepping around the body.

“Don’t get me wrong, Hope, I love watching you satiate that blood lust of yours, and I can think of dozens of ways it’ll come in handy,” she began. “But where you have raw power, I have vision. I have all kinds of ideas for how we can put it to use.”

Hope raised an eyebrow. She approached Josie, backing her up against the counter. “Well, if you get to watch me  _ satiate my blood lust _ ,” she drawled, skirting the line between teasing and mocking. “I think it’s only fair that I get to hear about these _ideas_ of yours.”

Josie hesitated. She stared at Hope intensely, her lips twisting into a conflicted frown. “And can I trust that you won’t sabotage them?” she muttered, actually looking unsure of herself for once.

Hope scoffed. "Of course you can trust me," she replied, as though she were offended. She nodded toward the butler's body, splayed out on the floor and very much dead. "How many people do I have to kill before it’s clear to you that we’re in this together?" 

Josie bit her lip, studying Hope intently like she was searching for some reason to doubt her. “Fine,” she relented after a moment, though she didn't sound very happy about it. “I’ll brief you.”

Hope only replied with a beaming smile.

Josie raised an eyebrow. “Why are you smiling like that?” she asked, suspicious.

Hope shrugged. “I didn’t expect you to say yes,” she admitted.

Josie rolled her eyes, pushing Hope back by the shoulders. “Whatever,” she murmured, unable to fight off her own smile. She turned away to hide it, moving to the other side of the kitchen. “Is there anyone else in the house?”

Hope paused, stilling to listen. She tuned in to a some footsteps not that far away, accompanied by a steady heartbeat. “On the back porch,” she answered. “Pacing. Probably another guard.”

“Hm,” Josie hummed. “Is that it?”

Hope stilled again, listening harder. Her eyes squinted as if she were trying to decipher something, but then she blinked rapidly like she was surprised. “Two on the third floor,” she replied, looking back at Josie. “They haven’t noticed anything. They’re… busy.”

Josie cocked her head to the side, her brow furrowing with confusion. “Busy?” she echoed. 

Hope just gave Josie a meaningful look.

Josie's eyes widened and she let out a surprised laugh. " _Oh,"_ she murmured after a moment, her eyes darkening as she stared at Hope intensely. “Is that so?”

Hope tensed slightly in response to the look Josie was giving her. She swallowed thickly, suddenly very attentive to Josie's heartbeat. She barely fought the urge to openly stare at Josie's neck.

Josie disrupted the silence after a long, tense moment. “Let’s deal with the guard first,” she suggested. “While the other two are still…  _ busy _ .”

Josie turned to walk toward the back porch, but Hope was suddenly standing in front of her. “Tell me what we’re doing here,” Hope demanded.

Josie frowned. She relented after a moment and let out a sigh. “I’d hate to disappoint you, but there’s not much to it,” she admitted. “I wanted to get a preview of how you operate under pressure. Beautifully, by the way.”

Hope blinked, blushing at the strange compliment. 

“And we needed somewhere to spend the night," Josie continued. She gestured to the fully stocked bar in the corner of the kitchen. "Somewhere nice, fully stocked to celebrate our newfound alliance.”

Hope frowned. “Celebrate?” she echoed, suspicious.

Josie nodded. “I thought you deserved to relax a bit after all the stress I put you through before you turned,” she explained with an exaggerated pout. Her eyes suddenly twinkled with mischief. "They have a jacuzzi." 

Hope recoiled, confused. "How do you even know that—" she cut herself off and shook her head. "Never mind, let's just kill the guard."

Josie let Hope lead the way out of the kitchen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you like it! Thanks for all the feedback. 
> 
> Let me know what you think. :)


	4. Chapter 4

Hope learned quite a bit in a short amount of time, as is typically the case when one has no choice.

She learned almost immediately after she turned that the human heart was a violent thing—but a fragile thing, all the same. That was a hard fact to ignore the first time she dug her fangs into someone’s neck. 

She drank until his heart gave out, which took a lot less time than she expected it to. At first, his heart pounded faster and harder to try to compensate for his blood loss—but then, suddenly, it collapsed in on itself and halted altogether.

He was empty. Like a drained juicebox.

It gave Hope a feeling unlike any other in the world. A blind, senseless euphoria. His body collapsed on the ground and she stared down at him while she recovered.

He was an _it_ now, she realized. Just like that. A body. There was no longer a person in it.

Hope had ended him, and it was so easy. She wanted to end his life, so she did so. It was that simple. 

It didn’t feel like it had to mean much, either, if she didn’t want it to—not in the same way that the guilt would’ve eaten her alive if she’d killed him before she turned, anyway.

The guilt wasn’t gone entirely. Her conscience simply shrunk from the transition, just as Josie predicted it would. What used to be an almost suffocating moral code was dampened, quiet and distorted like a voice calling out from the bottom of a well.

Easy to ignore.

Easier still if Josie was watching the scene with a proud glint in her eye.

So, Hope didn’t feel a whole lot of remorse—not like she expected to. 

She mostly felt fascinated. 

She thought back to anatomy classes. She remembered, vaguely, from lessons she’d barely paid attention to, how the heart was electric. How its contraction was unified and coordinated.

How it pushed blood to the lungs to be oxygenated, and then took it back again. How it sent blood down a network of arteries, capillaries and veins; how it pushed blood to every cell in the body.

The atria, the ventricles, one-way valves, heart-rate, blood pressure—before, it had all seemed so boring. 

It seemed more important than anything else to her now. She could barely go a moment without thinking about it. 

She supposed that might partly be because it had all become more real to her. She could hear the heartbeat of every person in the room. She could hear when someone’s heart rate spiked, for whatever reason—exertion, excitement.

Fear.

Adrenaline made blood taste better.

She wondered if oxygenated blood might taste better.

She wondered how the human body could manage to be so resilient and self-sustaining, yet so fragile at the same time. She wondered where and when the line was drawn—at what point the body made the switch from fighting back to giving up, as it bled out.

It was a whole new world for her, now, and her old way of living was looking more and more like a waste of time with every passing minute. What a boring way of living—as only a werewolf and a witch, when she was born to be a vampire.

But Hope didn't think that much about the past anymore. 

She didn’t think that much about the future, either.

It was all about the present for her now. Her senses were amplified—rich and overwhelming.

Certain aspects of her personality were amplified, too, but not the parts she expected. 

If Hope were asked before she transitioned, she would’ve described herself as a moral person—but, as it turned out, that was only ever a costume she wore for Dr. Saltzman. 

Apparently, the real Hope was _morally ambiguous_ , as Josie would say. Consequences didn’t even occur to her.

She was easily angered. 

She had very little impulse control.

But she was also loyal.

And, for Hope, Josie took precedence, whether she was evil or not. The matter was never up for debate. It came as naturally as breathing.

If Josie told her to kill, Hope would kill.

If anyone threatened to harm Josie, Hope would see them suffer.

It shouldn’t have been surprising, really. In fact, it was so natural that Hope herself didn’t even pause to question it. 

Hope had already been willing to go to the ends of the earth to make sure that Josie was happy and safe. Transitioning into a vampire only caused those feelings to become more intense.

Josie seemed to consider this outcome the best case scenario—a cause for celebration.

Hope couldn’t really tell if that was the only reason Josie led her to invade a borderline mansion and kill a whole security detail. But Hope couldn’t find it in her to care that much about whether or not Josie had an ulterior motive—not anymore.

She was too busy enjoying herself. 

She liked the thrill of murdering everyone. She liked compelling the only survivor to stay calm and offer up her neck.

She liked the liquor, even though she’d never had a taste for it before she transitioned.

She liked the jacuzzi. 

The house was built into a steep hill. It was isolated—the backyard seemed to go on for acres, bounded in the distance by a line of trees.

The jacuzzi was in the basement, in a big fancy wooden room. The room appeared to be half inside and half outside, tucked tightly under the house and bounded by see-through mesh screens instead of walls.

They found a record player and a stack of albums near the door.

Hope made a sarcastic comment about the fact that the owners only seemed to have classical music, but Josie took the time to look through their collection thoroughly.

Hope’s brow furrowed. She lowered herself into the jacuzzi and studied Josie from behind as the siphon flicked through the albums, completely focused.

For Hope, there was something oddly comforting about the fact that Josie still cared about music.

It was also confusing, though. Hope hadn’t expected that Dark Josie would show interest in anything besides world domination.

Josie eventually settled on Chopin’s Nocturnes. The piano sounded through the speakers, breaking through the silence. 

Hope chose not to mention how dramatic and angsty it was. 

Actually, Hope found herself enjoying it. For some reason, it sounded way different from how she remembered it sounding before her transition. It was difficult to keep herself from becoming too absorbed in it.

After setting up the music, Josie ended up tucked in a corner of the jacuzzi, opposite Hope. 

Josie let out a quiet sigh and rolled her shoulders. She seemed a little bit tired. Hope figured that she must be drained from a long week of evil scheming.

Josie rested her head and shut her eyes.

Hope shamelessly stared at her. 

The more time Hope spent with Dark Josie, the more she was starting to seem like a normal person. It was weird—disconcerting, really. 

Hope had a certain understanding of Josie before she transitioned. It was gradually being chipped away. 

Before, Hope hadn’t even considered the fact that Dark Josie probably did all of the normal human things—ate, got tired, slept. Now that Hope was spending so much time with her, there were moments where Josie's humanity would suddenly break out and seem glaringly obvious.

Hope didn’t know what to think about it.

To distract herself, Hope decided that she was still hungry, despite having just murdered a whole procession of people. She lifted herself out of the jacuzzi to sit on the wooden deck it was built into, her legs still dangling in the water. 

She glanced toward the door, where she had compelled the lone survivor to stand. She beckoned the woman over and had her sit on the deck, beginning to feed on her neck.

After a long minute of peaceful silence, Josie’s eyelids fluttered open. She fixed her gaze on Hope.

Josie watched quietly for a while, enjoying seeing Hope in her element—that is, until the woman whimpered ever-so-slightly at the pain and Hope reflexively clutched her closer. 

A flash of what looked like annoyance flickered over Josie’s face, but it faded away just as quickly as it came. Her expression became blank and controlled again.

Hope was too absorbed in her meal to notice.

Josie raised an eyebrow and smirked, studying the scene intently. “Well, don’t savor it _too_ much,” she drawled. “I might get jealous.”

For a moment, Josie wondered if Hope had even heard her. Hope continued to feed—even more violently than before, it seemed. 

But then, Hope jerked away from the woman in a flash and sucked in a sharp gasp. She blinked rapidly and licked her lips, as though she were snapping out of a trance. 

As soon as she remembered herself, Hope tilted the woman’s chin to look into her eyes. “Go upstairs and wait for me,” she ordered.

Immediately, an eerie, zombie-like smile crawled over the woman’s face. “I’ll go upstairs and wait for you,” she echoed without inflection, her eyes glazed over.

The words had barely left the woman's mouth before she rose to her feet. She lost her balance and swayed a bit from the blood loss. She paused to prevent herself from falling over, but then she obediently marched to the door and disappeared into the house.

Hope watched her go and smirked at the success of her compulsion. She licked her lips again, swallowing down any excess blood. She shifted, then, and lowered herself back into the jacuzzi with a content sigh.

There was a long, comfortable silence. Hope basked in the feeling of the high she’d gotten from feeding. She glanced around the room. Her vision was sharper, ever since she turned. She noted the grain of the wood; the wisps of steam floating off the water.

And then, inevitably, her eyes drifted over to Josie. She noted the way her hair cascaded over her shoulders and disappeared into the water. She noted Josie's collarbone; the smooth curve of her neck.

The thrum of her pulse. Hope matched the sound of the steady heartbeat thudding in Josie's chest to where she could practically see the vein along Josie’s neck pulsating.

Hope swallowed thickly after a moment, shifting in her seat and forcing her gaze up higher. She noticed the twitch of Josie’s lips as they curved up into a smirk.

Hope noticed that Josie was staring back at her a moment too late.

Josie held Hope’s gaze for a long moment, in which Hope was torn between feeling caught and deciding to feel no shame. She ultimately didn’t have to decide, because Josie decided not to address the obvious tension between them. 

“Compulsion seems... convenient,” Josie murmured with a contemplative purse of her lips, her eyes playful.

Hope took a moment before she responded, studying Josie suspiciously. 

Sometimes, conversations with Josie felt more like playing chess. Hope almost always felt like she was making the wrong move. 

Hope nodded after a brief moment of hesitation. “I don’t know how I went my whole life without it,” she opted to say.

Josie absentmindedly hummed her agreement. She twisted in her seat, picking up the glass of bourbon she’d placed on the ledge behind her and swirling the liquid in it. “You seem to be enjoying this so far,” she observed without looking up, her voice deceptively casual.

Hope raised an eyebrow, not entirely certain of what Josie was getting at.

Josie glanced up at Hope’s expression and chuckled. “Being a vampire, I mean,” she clarified.

Hope licked her lips and shrugged. “It’s not so bad,” she said noncommittally.

That was an understatement. Hope was enjoying herself quite a bit. Even as she spoke, the pleasure of the jets massaging her shoulders was overwhelming her senses in a way a human couldn’t even dream of.

Josie seemed to know that Hope was underselling it. She just stared for a long pause, her expression serious and intense. “What about feeding?” she eventually prompted, her tone unreadable.

Hope felt her shoulders tense, despite the pleasant heat of the water. Her eyes narrowed, locking onto Josie’s. “What about it?” she asked, suspicious.

Josie shrugged, averting her gaze back to her drink. She took a quick swig of it before replying. Hope found herself unsurprised when Josie didn’t even flinch at the taste. 

“You seem to enjoy it,” Josie observed without looking back up, feigning innocence.

Hope scoffed out a laugh, like the comment was absurd. She raised an eyebrow, unable to stop herself from smirking. “Well, I’m a vampire, Jo,” she replied. “Don’t sound so surprised.”

Josie looked up, her expression blank. She lifted the glass to her lips and threw back the rest of the drink without breaking eye contact, licking her lips before she replied. “I’m not surprised,” she stated simply. “I’m just trying to get to know you.”

Hope frowned, as though that were a bit offensive. “You’ve known me for a decade,” she retorted.

Josie shrugged once again. “Yeah, but you’re different now,” she stated.

“Different?” Hope asked with a frown.

Josie nodded. “Different from how you were,” she elaborated. 

Hope scowled a bit, feeling a little defensive for some reason. “I’m not _that_ much different,” she claimed. “Maybe you just didn’t know me as well as you thought you did.”

Josie scoffed, her air of nonchalance dropping in a split second. “Oh, please,” she spat with a light glare, as though Hope’s suggestion had insulted her. “I knew you better than you knew you.”

Hope blinked, slightly taken off guard by the claim. “Oh, really?” she challenged, raising an eyebrow. “We barely spoke up until a year ago.”

Josie rolled her eyes. “I studied you for a decade prior,” she replied, matter-of-fact. 

Hope’s lips parted in shock. She swallowed thickly, her hands nervously clenching into fists under the water. “I didn’t know you were paying attention,” she admitted.

Josie shrugged lazily, apparently not embarrassed by what she was revealing at all. “You’ve always had my attention.”

Hope failed to respond. 

That comment was confusing—and not just because the information was new. 

Hope had been under the impression that Josie and Dark Josie were distinct entities. She didn’t understand how Dark Josie could’ve been keeping tabs on her for years before anyone even knew she existed.

Josie studied Hope for a moment. Then, she turned and placed her empty glass back on the ledge behind her. She twisted back around, leaning forward in her seat. “Can I ask you something?”

Hope stared at her, carefully keeping her expression blank. The question felt loaded, but she didn't know why. She gave Josie a stiff nod.

Josie licked her lips, her gaze scanning over Hope’s face. “What does blood taste like?” she murmured, like the question was a secret.

Hope’s brow furrowed with confusion and she frowned. “Why do you want to know?”

Josie shrugged, pursing her lips—trying and failing to act like she wasn’t very interested in the conversation. “I’m just curious,” she claimed. “Answer me.”

Hope took a long time to consider it—first, to consider whether or not she should answer, and then to consider what her answer should be. 

Asking herself _‘What does blood taste like?’_ automatically immersed her in a flashback. She imagined the guy in the alley; the first flood of blood in her mouth after she bit him; his panicked yelp—

She cleared her throat, awkwardly blinking the memory away and tuning back into the moment. “Power,” she breathed. “It tastes like power.”

Josie tilted her head, surprised. The corner of her lip quirked up into a half-smile. “Power,” she echoed, her voice curling around the word with reverence even as her eyes sparkled mischievously. 

Josie was moving, then—pushing off of her seat, drifting a foot or two closer and hovering in the middle of the jacuzzi. 

Hope stilled and watched Josie approach, her face intentionally blank even as she felt a wave of panic. “You’d know what power tastes like, wouldn’t you?” she murmured. “If anyone does.”

Josie only quirked an eyebrow in response. She drifted even closer. Hope was disoriented by the movement. There wasn’t much space left between them, after all.

Hope flinched almost violently when Josie straddled her lap in one smooth motion, momentarily losing her composure. Instinctively, her hands rose to rest on Josie’s hips, keeping her steady.

Hope gave Josie a pointed look laced with a silent question— _What do you think you’re doing?_

Josie smirked, apparently amused by the expression. She winked. _Wouldn’t you like to know?_

Hope scowled, unamused.

Josie ignored it, running her hands through her hair. Hope’s grip tightened on her hips when the movement caused Josie to sway a bit. Josie reached around her own neck and swept her hair over a shoulder without breaking eye contact.

Hope’s heart-rate spiked. The move seemed too intentional—like it meant something. Hope held her breath, unable to keep her eyes from drifting down to stare at Josie’s neck, exposed and only inches away.

Josie cleared her throat pointedly, forcing Hope to look back up at her. “I might know what power _feels_ like,” she purred, looking far too pleased with herself. “I’m not so sure if I know how it tastes.”

Hope squirmed in her seat. Her gaze flickered down to Josie’s neck a few times before she resolved to train it on the ceiling. “Tastes, feels,” she muttered under her breath, barely keeping herself under control. “There’s no difference to me. Not anymore.”

Josie frowned. The mischief in her expression was put on hold, replaced by genuine curiosity. “What do you mean?” she asked.

Hope hesitated. “I can’t keep my senses and my feelings separate anymore,” she admitted quietly. “It’s all the same, since I turned.”

Josie didn’t react. She just stared at Hope intently, her expression unreadable.

Hope shrugged, taking Josie’s silence as a cue to elaborate further. “They’re too strong,” she explained. “It all blends together.”

Josie braced her hands of Hope's shoulders, prompting her to look down. “Tell me,” she demanded, her tone leaving no room for argument.

Hope raised an eyebrow. “Tell you what?”

Josie pouted a little bit, impatient. “How it tastes.”

Hope stared at Josie's lips for a moment, distracted by the pout. She began to pout a little bit herself. “Like I said, it tastes like power,” she repeated. “Is that not a good enough answer for you?”

Josie scowled, dissatisfied. “It’s a weak answer,” she deadpanned. “Vague; evasive. Too brief. I want more.”

Hope laughed a bit, surprised by Josie's bluntness. “Brevity is the soul of wit,” she recited with a wink.

Josie scowled, unamused. "Hope," she started, her tone a bit threatening. "Give me a better answer."

Hope raised an eyebrow, unable to wipe the smirk off of her face. “I am not bound to please thee with my answer,” she murmured, raising a hand to brush a lock of hair behind Josie's ear.

Josie rolled her eyes. Hard. “Actually, Shakespeare, I think you are,” she spat, not at all pleased about the random quotes. 

The smirk drooped off of Hope's face and she huffed out a sigh. “Alright, fine,” she relented. She paused for a moment to think. “It tastes like dominance. Possession. Like you’re holding someone’s life in your hands, like you have the power to choose whether they live or die.”

Josie’s brow furrowed with confusion, like she was trying to conceptualize how exactly all of that could be conveyed through _taste_.  
  


Hope wasn't finished, though. Her eyes were trained on Josie's neck, but they were glazed over like she was somewhere else entirely. “But it’s more than that,” she murmured, almost as if she were talking to herself. “The adrenaline comes through in their blood. You feel every little spike of fear. You feel what they feel. It’s a bit different every time. It pulls you out of your head. It’s like you get a glimpse into theirs. Everything else sort of disappears. It's like—”

“Feed from me,” Josie interrupted.

Hope instantly froze, her eyes widening. Her eyes snapped up to stare at Josie, shocked. “What did you just say?” she practically squeaked.

Josie raised an eyebrow, a challenging look in her eye like she was daring Hope to deny her. "Feed from me," she repeated.

Hope blinked—once, twice. “No.”

Josie recoiled. Her eyes widened slightly, like she hadn't been expecting that reply at all. “No?” she echoed, in disbelief. She scoffed out a laugh. “And here I was thinking that you might have some weird loophole sire bond to me, with the way you’ll do just about anything I ask.”

Hope scowled, but she let the comment slide. “I won’t hurt you, Josie,” she said, her voice firm.

Josie scoffed. “Hurt me?” she spat, offended. She rolled her eyes. “Come on, now, let’s not pretend that you could.”

Hope's frown deepened. “I’m serious, Jo,” she said, stern. “No.”

To Hope's surprise, Josie simply looked amused. “Oh, come on, Hope,” she practically whined, something in her eye making Hope feel like she was being mocked. “I can handle it.”

Hope stared up at her, her frown firmly held in place. She looked determined not to budge.

Josie seemed unbothered. She smirked, leaning closer.

Hope tensed, noticing that Josie's neck even closer than before.

Josie's breath brushed against the shell of Hope's ear. "I get what I want, you know," she whispered. "You might as well give it to me now."

Hope's breathing grew heavy. She tried to breathe through her mouth, thinking that it might help her calm down if she wasn't so immersed in Josie's scent, but that only made things worse.

Josie leaned even closer, relentless. “I want you to taste how I feel about you,” 

Hope's heart seized in her chest. She growled, her eyes flickering gold, bounded by shivering black veins. Hope closed her eyes and breathed in deep. “Josie, whatever you’re doing...,” she trailed off, pushing Josie back a few inches by the shoulders. “If you’re trying to mess with my head, stop.”

Josie stilled. After a moment, she jerked back further, putting more space between them. “What?” she demanded, her voice tightly controlled and her face blank. “Why would you think I said that to mess with your head?”

Hope took a few more labored breaths, her eyes still shut closed until the gold faded away. “Because,” she hissed. “You don’t _have_ feelings.”

Josie recoiled, as if that accusation physically shocked her.

Hope's eyes fluttered open.

Josie's expression was guarded, and she was staring at Hope intensely. “Just because I don’t show them doesn’t mean that they’re not there, Hope,” she bit. “You of all people should know that.”

Hope blinked. That response only confused her. She shook her head, unable to accept it. “Oh, come on,” she retorted dismissively. “That’s bullshit. You're a self-proclaimed sociopath.” 

Josie scoffed. In an instant, she pushed herself off of Hope and stood up straight, her torso rising out of the water. “Alright, fine,” she snapped, glaring down at Hope. “I don’t have feelings, then, if that’s what you want to think.” 

Hope stared at Josie like she had three heads. She scrambled to her feet, too, forcing Josie to take a step back. "Wait, why are you getting defensive over this?" she asked, genuinely confused. 

Josie practically snarled. “I’m not _defensive_ ,” she growled dangerously.

Hope stared at Josie, her mouth agape. “Are you actually offended right now?” she asked, in disbelief.

That only seemed to make Josie angrier. She glared so hatefully that Hope flinched. “How can I be _offended_ if I don’t have feelings, Hope?!” she practically shouted, furious. “Make up your goddamn mind!”

Josie spun around and pulled herself out of the jacuzzi, stomping away on the deck and grabbing a towel. 

Hope blinked. “I…,” she trailed off, speechless. “Please, I don’t understand.”

Josie frowned at that, her chest heaving with rage when she spun back around to look at her. For a moment, she almost looked hurt.

Hope almost did a double take, gaping in shock.

Josie's expression was almost immediately schooled back into a cold and guarded one. “Why do you think I brought you here, Hope?” she demanded.

Hope's brow furrowed. She gulped, not knowing what to say. Her mouth open and closed a couple of times uselessly, but she snapped it shut and remained silent.

Josie sighed heavily and looked away. "Never mind," she muttered resentfully. She wrapped the towel around her waist. "Maybe I shouldn’t have."

Josie made a beeline for the door that led back into the house.

“Josie, wait!” Hope called out, almost desperately. She scrambled to pull herself out of the jacuzzi, but Josie was already slamming the door shut behind her before Hope could stand up.

Hope stared at the door, her lips parted in shock. She stood in silence for a long moment, staring blankly at the door. “What the fuck?” she muttered to herself, glancing around the room like she was expecting to find an answer to her question somewhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the first part of this chapter is weirdly long, i hope it's not super boring
> 
> anyhow, let me know what you think!


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